


The Musical Archives

by storm_aurora



Series: The Phantom of the Musical [2]
Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber, Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Compilation, Drama, Gen, Side Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-05-23 14:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_aurora/pseuds/storm_aurora
Summary: This is a compilation of several side stories and deleted scenes from "The Phantom of the Musical". Some take place during the story's events, others take place in the past, and still others never actually happened at all. A brief summary contextualizing each one is included at the beginning of each chapter.





	1. Walkout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place following Yvonne's walkout on the day of the gala and explores in greater depth her motivation for doing so. I advise that you read it sometime after reading Chapter 4 of the main story.

“Fletchy, return,” Yvonne commanded as soon as her Talonflame released her shoulders. She was already storming towards the entrance of the little single-story home by the time Xavier’s Unfezant, Déflai, set him on the ground. She jabbed her key at the lock and missed. She jabbed at it again and missed again. Finally, she got it in the lock on the third try. She pushed and pulled at the door a bit until the key finally turned and unlocked it, and she flung the door open and strode inside.

Xavier was heading resignedly towards the door when he heard the notification chime of his Holo Caster. He quickly answered the call, happy for a tangible excuse to prolong his entry into the house.

Meanwhile, inside, Yvonne stormed into the living room and snatched a pillow off the couch. With a guttural cry, she chucked the pillow at the opposite wall, which had been left empty for this purpose. She took a few harsh breaths before picking up another pillow, which she crushed between her palms for a moment before hurling it at the wall. She inhaled deeply and exhaled.

“Are you finished?” Xavier asked nonchalantly from the entry hall.

Yvonne grabbed another pillow and spun around to face the entrance but caught herself before she threw the pillow into an area where it really could break something. She dropped the pillow back onto the couch and sighed, sinking down onto the couch cushions. “I’m quite finished,” she said.

“Good,” Xavier replied, entering the living room. He took a seat in the comfy brown recliner across from Yvonne, folded his arms, and quirked an eyebrow at her. “Now, how long do you plan for this walkout to last?”

“As I said in the theater, until they solve that damn ghost problem,” Yvonne replied, regaining a bit of her haughty composure. “They’ll come back tomorrow, begging for me to return, just like White did last time. But unlike last time, I will refuse to return until they ensure that the Phantom is gone for good!”

“That’s not the only thing that’s unlike last time,” Xavier said with a frown, pulling out his Holo Caster. “Shauna’s still at the Theater, and she sent me this.”

Xavier pressed a button, and a small hologram of their sassy brunette friend popped up above the surface of the device. “Bad news, X-ey,” Shauna said. “And, uh, you probably shouldn’t share this with Y-ey until she’s calmed down. They’ve found a replacement for her in the show tonight. Whitley Daaé. She’s one of the chorus girls.”

“A chorus girl?” Yvonne scoffed. “Those little ballerinas can’t _sing_.”

“…don’t know why she’s just been in the ballet chorus all this time,” Shauna’s message continued. “She sang that aria – ‘Think of Me’ – for the managers, and…holy shit, her voice was _gorgeous_! Not as good as Y-ey’s, obviously, but close. Certainly better than anyone expected from someone like her. And with a bit of training…she could easily rival Y-ey in talent.” The hologram scowled. “But of course, if they think Y-ey’s quit on them, there won’t _be_ any rivalry – they’ll stick with the singer they’ve got! X-ey, you have to get her back up here ASAP. They won’t come back begging for her to return like they did last time.”

The hologram vanished, and Xavier slipped the Holo Caster back in his pocket. “You heard her. I hate to damage your immaculate pride, but we don’t have much choice now,” he said.

“We have plenty of choices!” Yvonne retorted. “Who’s to say this Daaé girl is even as good as Shauna claims?”

“Do you doubt your friend’s judgment?” Xavier replied.

Yvonne huffed. “No. But surely this chorus girl is just a temporary solution…”

“After hearing you say that you won’t return until they stop a ghost who they don’t seem to even believe exists?”

“They’d be mad _not_ to believe in him,” she said disdainfully. “The Phantom’s been causing trouble at the Theater for ages. I don’t have a problem with a little mischief here and there, but I’m sick and tired of having him deliberately _sabotage_ me!”

“But the new managers don’t know that,” Xavier pointed out. “Why should they put the effort into trying to stop a ghost so that you’ll come back when they could just utilize the talent they already have?”

“Because I deserve a little bit of respect, damn it!” Yvonne shouted, slamming her hand down on the couch. She stood up and began pacing across the living room. “Mom wouldn’t respect the fact that I didn’t want to be a Rhyhorn racer. Shauna’s parents wouldn’t respect the fact that we followed them to Unova because we wanted to leave Kalos. The Phantom won’t respect the fact that I earned my position as the prima donna of the Theater through years of self-study and practice.” She stopped and turned to face Xavier. “I’ve struggled so much to get us both to a place where we can be happy, X. I just want people to respect me for it.”

There was a long pause as Yvonne stared at Xavier. He lowered his gaze and bowed his head, fingering an arm of the char. “I respect you for it, Y,” he said quietly. “I never would have had the courage to leave my house if it wasn’t for your plan to run away. No one notices me here, especially when I’m with you. I owe my life and livelihood to you.”

“X…” Yvonne blinked away the wetness that had blurred her vision. “X, I…I appreciate it. I really do. But it doesn’t change the fact that these people don’t respect me, and I don’t know how to change that.”

“I don’t know any better than you do,” Xavier said, shaking his head. “But I don’t think running away again will help you in that regard. You have to go back. Maybe you can drive home the fact that you want something done about the Phantom. But you have to let them know that you do still want to sing for the Theater.”

Yvonne glared at him. “Of course I still want to sing for the Theater, but I’m not making a trip all the way back there just to tell the managers that.” She rubbed her chin pensively. “Ah, I know. They’ll be casting roles for next season’s production soon – _Il Dolore Real_. Shauna can take a message to the managers for me telling them that I will gladly play the Princess in the production if they make sure the Phantom stops sabotaging me. Call her and tell her that – please?” she added.

“It can be arranged,” Xavier grunted.

“ _Merci_ ,” Yvonne said, blowing him an exaggerated kiss. She swept into her room in a much better mood than she had been in when she first came home, and she didn’t think anything could dampen her spirits – until the next morning, when the letter arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since X nicknames his Pokémon based on their French names, Déflai's nickname comes from Unfezant's French name, Déflaisan. Also, for a bit of context in case you're not familiar with the XY chapter, X was swarmed by paparazzi in his youth for winning a junior battle tournament. To get away from them, he shut himself up in his room for several years. Canonically, he comes out at the beginning of the arc when his hometown is destroyed; in this universe, he comes out when Y comes up with a plan to run away from Kalos and live with Shauna, who just moved to Unova.
> 
> Please, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them!


	2. The Chandelier Accident (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place 7 years before the main story begins and describes the accident that led to Hugh's resignation. It alternates between White's perspective and Hugh's perspective. I advise that you read this chapter sometime after reading Chapter 7 of the main story.

“Don’t tear that apart, we can reuse it!” I barked, a little harsher than I meant to. Emerald shot me a withering look and started to drag the unwieldy fake gravestone off the stage, and I sighed. “Sorry, let me help you with that.”

It had been a long day, the last performance of _Red Fog of Terror_. Since it also happened to be Halloween, the show had been completely sold out; however, that also meant it was the day of the big Halloween Festival at Nimbasa’s amusement park, so most of my staff members had taken the afternoon or the whole day off to go to the festival with their kids or friends. As a result, I had only a handful of my usual backstage crew to help me clear the stage. We had to recruit the maintenance crew and some of the performers to assist us, and none of them knew what to do.

Of course, Emerald didn’t have an excuse like that to not know what to do with the gravestone props – he was our main set designer. He should have known what we could and couldn’t reuse. But I kept this comment to myself, knowing it wouldn’t help us any. Instead, I moved to the other side of the gravestone and started to push it. We got it as far as the right wing before I got swarmed.

There were at least four people trying to talk to me at the same time, so I couldn’t understand any of them. “Stop, stop, one at a time!” I complained, waving at them all to take a few steps back. I pointed to the blue-haired janitor. “Crystal, you first.”

“I’m supposed to be taking these costumes to storage,” she explained, “but this one seems to have a torn seam–”

“Costume department,” I said automatically. “Next!”

Crystal hurried away with the costumes, and a boy I vaguely recognized piped up next. “One of the performers has sore ankles–”

“Take them to Moon,” I said, cutting him off.

“She already _came_ to Moon,” the boy informed me. That’s right, he was the courier boy who was recruited to help us out when he came to deliver a package to Iris. “Moon was making a poultice to soothe the pain, but she ran out of Rawst Berries for it and needs more.”

I groaned and rubbed my forehead. I didn’t have time to think about where to pick up Rawst Berries on short notice when I had so many other things to think about. “Hang on a sec,” I finally told him. I’d help him after everybody else’s problems were sorted out.

I told Emerald to go ahead and take the gravestone to the third-floor storage room instead of waiting around for me. I got Yellow’s and Silver’s problems sorted out and turned to the courier – Sun, I finally remembered his name – to take him on a Rawst Berry hunt.

“White, what about the fog machine?”

I suppose I should have been surprised by the way Hugh seemed to materialize in front of me as he spoke, but it was nothing extraordinary for him and by this point, I was too tired to be surprised by anything. I wasn’t really sure what fog machine he was talking about, so I said absentmindedly, “Take it down…you know what to do.”

He gave me a funny look, but I didn’t think anything of it – it was getting hard for me to think of anything else. My brain had stumbled upon an idea of where to find a Rawst Berry, and that was my current goal.

I grabbed Sun’s hand and yanked him out of the theater, dragging him into the Trainer’s lounge outside the Pokémon Musical auditorium. Sure enough, there was a basket of Berries inside, including a Rawst Berry.

I sent Sun to deliver the requested Berry and lingered in the lounge a little longer, munching on a Pecha Berry and giving myself time to take a breather. The sweet Berry restored my energy and jumpstarted my brain, and I finally realized what fog machine Hugh had been talking about.

I instantly dropped the Berry and scrambled to the door. “Please tell me he wouldn’t be stupid enough to listen to me,” I muttered desperately to myself as I headed back to the theater.

* * *

Quite frankly, I was rather surprised that White gave me permission to take down the fog machine. After all, I had mounted it on the ceiling next to the theater’s opulent chandelier with the help of a Flying-type Pokémon, and she hadn’t thought to provide me with one this time around. I could have asked to borrow someone else’s – I knew the prima donna had a Butterfree, for example – but I was a stubborn genius. I preferred to find my own solution, even if that solution posed significantly greater danger.

My solution utilized the maintenance shaft that led straight to the chandelier. The maintenance crew used it to change out the light bulbs that gave the crystalline fixture its distinctive gleam, but I needed it simply to access the chandelier itself. The fog machine was on the other side of the chandelier, so all I needed to do was cross the chandelier and take the machine off its mount.

I quickly realized that this task was easier said than done. As soon as I dropped onto the chandelier, it lurched under my weight and I very nearly fell to my death then and there. Luckily, years of running away from vicious wild Pokémon through the trees gave me a good sense of balance and I threw myself forward, where I could grip the chandelier’s chain and try to distribute my weight more evenly around it.

Of course, I knew right away that this would pose a problem once I started trying to unmount the fog machine. So, I pulled my normal Escape Rope out of one of the hidden pockets in my pants and reached across the chandelier. I tied one end of the Escape Rope to the frame on the other side and wrapped the other end around my left wrist a couple of times. Then I began inching my way around the highest tier of the chandelier to get to the same side as the rope.

I may not have had any formal education since I was eight years old, but I had done some self-studying in Castelia City and learned some basic principles of physics. For example, I knew that opposing forces applied to the same object cancel each other out. So, since my legs were applying a force downward on the chandelier, I could cancel it out by applying a force upward on it using the rope. At least, that was the plan.

I was still leaning into the chandelier’s chain to distribute my weight. I would have to push my torso away from the chandelier and pull up on the Escape Rope at the same time to keep the chandelier balanced. It was a tricky maneuver, but I was confident that I could manage it. I gripped the rope tightly and pushed off, swinging my weight backwards, pulling up on the rope–

“Hugh! What are you doing up there!?”

White’s panicked shout cut into my concentration and I didn’t yank on the Escape Rope as hard as I should have. The chandelier swung away from me and my feet slipped off it. I hissed something profane as I fell, though my descent was stopped at first by the rope that I still clung to with my left hand.

The lowest tier of the chandelier was just within reach of my right arm. While I knew I couldn’t hang on to the Escape Rope forever, at the same time, I didn’t trust my right arm to support my whole body. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed White flying towards me on her Vullaby. I knew she was coming to help me, but she would take too long. I had to take the risk.

Extending my arm as far out as it would go, I managed to hook the tips of the fingers of my right hand on the lowest tier of the chandelier. From there, I was able to wrap my whole hand around the metal frame of the chandelier. Unfortunately, even that small motion was enough to irritate the skin through my glove, and I muttered another curse under my breath. I’d have to rip off the metaphorical bandage quickly.

In a flash, I let go of the Escape Rope with my left hand. Pain shot down my arm and through the rest of my body, and I winced to keep myself from crying out. I quickly moved my left hand back to the chandelier and dropped my right hand to my side. My shifting weight caused the chandelier to sway again, but thankfully, it stopped at a much less awkward angle than before.

I was now dangling from the lowest tier of the chandelier by only my left hand. I could feel my fingers slipping as I hung there. I wished that I could take off my gloves and hang on to the chandelier with my bare hands, which had a much better grip than the cotton gloves. But I knew that was impossible. Not just because that would involve switching my hands again, but also because White would undoubtedly be getting close enough to see soon. I’d never let anyone see it before and I didn’t intend to start now; I knew they would react the same way they reacted to my face.

White was getting closer now. A few more seconds and she’d be close enough to grab my free hand. A chill ran through my body as I braced myself for the terrible redux of pain in my arm. The chandelier voiced my inner groaning.

And suddenly, I was falling.

I heard White’s agonized “No!” a lot closer to my ear than I expected. A desperate hand flew into my line of vision – and her panic ripped the last line of defense from my face.

I let out my own agonized cry then. The synthetic materials of my mask encountered more air resistance than I did and probably got caught somewhere in the chandelier falling above me. I didn’t dare look up, though; White had finally found my hand – my left one, fortuitously – and was pulling up on me. However, I could tell that she wasn’t going to be able to slow my descent enough before I hit the auditorium seats.

I squeezed my eyes shut. So this was how it would end. All that fighting to survive, and I would go out with my hideous face exposed, crushed by a chandelier. I heard the chandelier starting to shatter, felt some of the crystal hit my exposed face. Then I hit something soft, and there was silence.

But I was alive.

* * *

I swear my heart almost stopped three times that day. First, when I saw Hugh’s attempts to balance on the chandelier; second, when the chandelier’s chain broke; third, just before we hit the auditorium floor. Yet somehow, after all that, my heart was still beating. It was surely some sort of miracle.

Physically, I was perfectly fine. Somehow, Hugh and I had been teleported to land on someone’s bed – a quick glance around the room told me that it belonged to Whitley Daaé, an orphan girl who had been training to join the ballet chorus for a little over a year. I still didn’t know why Iris insisted on continuing to train her – the girl couldn’t sing to save her life – but I wasn’t heartless enough to throw her out of the Theater. For now, I was grateful that her bed had helped to save our lives.

Once I could breathe steadily, I looked at Hugh. He was lying face down on the bed next to me, keeping his left hand beside his face. It looked like he had pulled the black beanie he always wore lower on his head. “Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled into the bed.

“So why are you covering your face like that?” I prompted. “Did it get hurt? Come on, let me see.”

“No,” he said firmly, pulling his face away from me. There was a conspicuous red stain on the bedspread where it had been lying.

“Yes, your face is bleeding,” I gasped. “Let me look at it, Hugh.”

“No,” he insisted, but I wouldn’t hear it. I pulled his hand away and turned his face up to me – and screamed.

There was a large gash on the right side of his face, but that was far from the most disgusting part. It was the left side of his face – the skin had a deathly yellow pallor, and it clung to his skull like the head of a bass drum, like it had been pierced by a triangle beater where a shard of crystal had made a hole in the skin. The left side of his nose looked like it had been melted off his face and pooled on his lip, which was swelling up from a cut on the left side of it.

He pulled his hand away from me and pressed it to his chest. I barely had time to register the pain in his eyes before he sprang off the bed, pulling his beanie as far over his face as it would go. He tore out of the room, and I sat on the bed, mind reeling.

_Oh, God…what did I just see?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually don't have much to say about this one (without wandering into spoiler territory, that is). There are some things that I might be able to explain if someone asks about them, so feel free to ask any questions this chapter leaves you with :)


	3. Singing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story also takes place 7 years before the story begins, but a few months earlier than the previous one. It focuses on Hugh and White's relationship before the accident. I recommend reading it sometime after reading chapter 10 of the main story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title for this chapter: "Dramatic Irony: The Musical."

It’s a quiet Sunday at the Musical Theater. White’s given the performers the day off, since season three is coming along quite nicely. There isn’t even a musical today – those are only hosted on weekdays. The only activity going on today is orchestra rehearsal, which will be ending soon.

Not that it really makes a difference to me whether anything’s going on upstairs; Sunday is my composing day, and I always compose in my basement. I want to write a musical of my own for the company to perform, but the task is more difficult than I initially imagined. However, that only makes it more imperative that I see this project through to its conclusion – this may be my _magnum opus_ , the most significant piece of work I create.

But this afternoon, as I’m working on what will be the male lead’s important solo, my creative process is interrupted by an incessant tapping on my shoulder. With an incredibly forced exhale, I stop working and turn to face my companion, Meloetta.

Well, companion isn’t the best word to describe her – that would imply that I _enjoy_ her company. Usually, she is an unwelcome annoyance and I wish she would leave me alone. She’s given me plenty of grief in more ways than one. But her abilities can be quite useful at times – if she feels compelled to help me – so I haven’t driven her away yet.

The key word there is _yet_.

“What is it, Meloetta?” I ask her.

She doesn’t offer me a written note like she normally would after getting my attention, instead repeatedly poking my chest. So it’s insufferable pest today, then? I never can tell with her – I’ve known her for about a year now, and I still have no clue what she wants with me. They all want something. At least with her, it doesn’t seem to be my voice.

“I don’t have time for this, Meloetta, Stop it,” I tell her. “You’re acting like” – what analogy would a normal person use here? – “like a child. If you don’t stop, I will move upstairs and compose up there.”

Meloetta merely grins and starts poking me furiously.

“Stop it!” I snap, slapping her hand and standing up at the piano bench. I gather up my music and a couple of red gel pens – they just look so much better than regular pens – and inform her, “I’m going upstairs. Don’t bother me.”

Though orchestra rehearsal should be over by now, I’m a little worried that White will still be around. She’s the main reason I never compose upstairs – I don’t want her to overhear me singing the music that I’m writing, or any music for that matter. It’s one thing for her to know that I have a vast knowledge of music theory and technique; it’s a completely different matter altogether for her to find out that I can sing. I’ve had someone try to take advantage of me for my voice before, and I refuse to let it happen again.

It’s not that I don’t trust White, but she is a businesswoman and it would be in her best interest to put someone with a voice like mine onstage. But I won’t perform for anyone – I _can’t_ perform for anyone. Not with the mask…not with this face. If she finds out about my voice, even if she says that she’ll respect my wish not to perform, I couldn’t trust that she’s being honest. I would never be able to trust her again.

If White finds out about my singing…how could our friendship ever recover?

With that in mind, I know what I have to do. I’ve done it before, back before the show wing was added and I had to hide myself from everyone while living in the Theater. There was an electronic keyboard in one of the backstage storage rooms of the auditorium that I used to sneak down to when no one was around and play on. I plugged in an extra pair of headphones I found when I played so that no one else could hear the music – I didn’t expect anyone to be around, but I didn’t want to be caught by a janitor or some other unexpected visitor who heard music coming from my direction. I asked White to have that keyboard moved to the third orchestra practice room when the expansion was added, which _coincidentally_ is also the only one that has an entrance from the secret passages. It’s about time that I revisited my old keyboard friend.

The drawback is that I absolutely can’t make a sound while I’m composing, which is still better than going back downstairs and subjecting myself to Meloetta’s whims. She could follow me up here, I suppose, but she wants to be caught even less than me, so I’m probably safe.

However, as I crawl towards the trap door that opens down into the third orchestra practice room, I’m greeted by a much worse horror than Meloetta’s mischief: off-key singing. Specifically, a woman’s off-key rendition of the song “Little Beautifly”, from the show of the same name that we produced last season. I quietly open the trap door to see who’s committing this musical crime and, to my shock, the sinful singer is White Lefévre.

Everything about her performance is atrocious. Her posture is terrible, her pitch is making my ears bleed, her tempo is all over the place, and…is she even singing the right words? Before I can stop myself, I exclaim, “No, no, no!”

White shrieks and looks around frantically as I continue, “The line is ‘would _wish so much_ to be like you.’ Wishing is a very important motif in the musical, and you can’t just butcher that part of the line like you did!”

Finally, I realize that White’s panic is because she has no idea where my voice is coming from – even these practice rooms are surprisingly echoic – and I call, “It’s me. I’m up here,” before dropping down from the ceiling and landing gracefully next to White. I lived in a forest for six years; I’ve had a lot of time to work on graceful landings.

White holds her hand over her heart as she breathes a sigh of relief. “I forgot there was a trapdoor in the ceiling. For a moment there I thought I was being haunted by a ghost or something.”

“That would be more exciting, wouldn’t it?” I chuckle. “Sorry to disappoint you, I’m just boring old Hugh.”

“Maybe a ghost would have been better,” White says, fiddling with her ponytail and looking at the ground. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. I didn’t think anyone else was around.”

“My ears are grateful for the apology, but they’d like to know if that includes financial compensation for the hearing loss,” I reply drily.

White’s face reddens. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“It was that bad,” I inform her. “Even your breathing was terrible – do you realize you’re breathing from your stomach? You need to be breathing from your chest, it’ll help you get more air so you can sustain your notes longer–”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Music Expert,” White says. Her face has returned to its normal color, and her arms are folded as she rolls her eyes at me. Perhaps I went a little too far with the criticism, but what can I say? I’m a perfectionist. “If you know so much about how I should sing, why don’t you sing for me?”

I freeze. _Not that. Anything but that._ “W-what do you mean?” I stammer, stalling for time to think for a way out of this situation that doesn’t involve me singing.

“I want you to show me all these proper singing techniques by singing for me,” White explains, irritation replaced by eagerness. “C’mon, I’ve never actually heard you sing before. It’ll be fun!”

“No, it won’t,” I retort automatically.

“Why not?” White asks, tilting her head. “I thought you liked music. Do you not like singing, too?”

I rack my brain for something – anything – to get me out of this situation. I can’t come up with anything. All I can do is what my sister warned me never to do a long time ago – lie.

“I hate singing. I’m terrible at it,” I say. “All the greatest singing techniques in the world can’t make me sound decent. I don’t like to sing at all.”

“Well, you can’t sound any worse than me,” White argues. “I already embarrassed myself in front of you; it’s only fair that you embarrass yourself in front of me, too.” She grins. “I won’t laugh, I promise!”

I’m screwed. I’m so screwed. My voice sounded leagues better than White’s even before I’d had any formal music training. I’m not sure if I could sound that awful even if I try. But the lie’s already been told – I have to try, or I can never trust White again.

So, I sing “Little Beautifly” for White – softly, so it’s harder for her to hear and easier for me to control the resonance of my voice. It still sounds much better than her version, but at least it doesn’t sound great, either.

When I finish, White just says, “Wow,” with a neutral expression on her face. I can’t tell if it’s a good wow or a bad wow. Then she grins and says, “Where have you been hiding all this time? You should join the chorus – no, the main cast. You should be the lead in the next show!”

I’m horrified. Did I not sing poorly enough? Or is White just that good of a talent scout that she can hear through my faking and knows how talented I really am? Upon seeing my expression, White cracks up laughing and gives me a friendly shove. At least, I hope it’s a friendly shove.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! You’re not nearly good enough for the chorus. But hey, I was right; you _are_ better at singing than me.”

I relax and manage at least a smile back; I’m relieved that she bought the lie, but I’m still a little nervous about actually having to lie to her in the first place. It’s much easier to lie to people that I don’t care about. But I imagine it’ll get easier once this conversation is over and I don’t have to think about it so much. Hopefully, it’ll never come up again; it’s not like our whole relationship revolves around music or anything.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” White says jokingly. “You should go to some singing lessons with that little brunette girl that Iris brought in.”

“Yes, I’ll fit right in taking lessons with her,” I reply cheekily. “We’re both hopeless causes.”

We both burst into laughter. I relish the sound. But it’s soon interrupted by a knocking on the door – it’s Silver, the maintenance man, wanting to lock up for the day, and we realize it’s time that we say our good-byes.

“See you tomorrow, Hugh,” White says with a smile. “Hopefully, I won’t hear you.”

“Likewise,” I reply, slipping into the secret passage across from the costume department.

It always feels surprisingly good to hang out with White, even when all we’re doing is teasing each other, so it’s not until I’ve already reached the basement that I realize that I should be disappointed that I didn’t get any composing done. I can’t regret enjoying myself, but I will have to make up the time some other day. At the rate I’m going, it’ll be years before I finish this musical.

But when the time comes that I do finish it, I hope I’ll trust White enough to let her hear my voice for real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were literally two reasons I wrote this: one, I felt that people weren't really getting a good feel for what Hugh and White's relationship really used to be like. Two, I really love Hugh & White and I wanted to write some fluffy friend interactions between them. So basically, it's entirely self-indulgent and you may not have enjoyed it. Oh well.
> 
> And I wasn't kidding about the dramatic irony thing. You can easily find at least 8 instances of dramatic irony in this chapter (plus a couple more that are only dramatic irony to me because I know how the rest of the story goes).
> 
> Oh, and for the record: "Little Beautifly" is not a real song, nor is it a real musical. I made it up for the purposes of this story, and the only lyrics I wrote were:  
>  _Little Beautifly  
>  Flutter through the sky  
> Never carin' what you fly by_
> 
> _Little Beautifly_  
>  Never thought that I  
> Would wish so much to be like you  
> Simple, sweet, and to the point. Also kinda thematically appropriate for White, what with all the stuff she has to be in charge of.


	4. Victories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place around the same time as chapter 11; however, I recommend reading it after chapter 16. It tells the story of what White was doing while Ruby was talking to Blake after the masquerade.

The lights in the secret cellar were on when White entered, but Hugh was nowhere to be seen on the opposite shore. She crossed the invisible bridge anyways. She stopped in the center of his main room and waited. Within a few moments, Meloetta emerged from the blue curtain to her left. The Pokémon flew back behind the curtain almost immediately, but soon after re-emerged, accompanied by Hugh.

Unlike White, who was still wearing her sparkling white sundress from the masquerade, Hugh had changed out of his costume into a tank top and shorts. However, he still wore his blood red mask, his suit coat, and a pair of black gloves.

He folded his arms as he looked at White. “Why are you here?”

“That’s a fine way to greet a friend that you haven’t spoken to in eight years,” White snapped.

“Perhaps, but I believe you lost that title about eight years ago,” Hugh retorted.

She flinched and didn’t reply.

“Now, answer me. Why are you here?”

White took a deep breath and let it out. “Because you need to stop.”

“Stop what?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“All of… _this_ ,” White said, gesturing to his outfit and the mess of papers around his desk. “This Phantom business. I was a coward and a fool to let it go on as long as it has. You’re really hurting people now, Hugh, most of all Whitley.”

Hugh’s whole body tensed up at the mention of Whitley’s name. “And why should I care? People have never done anything but hurt me. All I’m doing is returning the favor,” he snarled.

“What do you think _I_ tried to do?” White cried.

“Even you hurt me in the end,” Hugh said darkly, putting a hand to his mask. “I’ve known nothing but suffering and illusions of happiness my whole life, White. When I see a chance at real happiness, I have to seize it…and I don’t care who else has to suffer along the way.”

White’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean that,” she gasped. “You…don’t care about me, or Iris…or Whitley? You don’t care if we suffer?”

“I’m tired of your questions,” Hugh growled. “You have five seconds to get out of here before Meloetta makes you.”

White stood up straighter and set her jaw. “That’s not gonna happen,” she declared. “I’m not leaving here until I’m certain that you’ll never terrorize the Theater again.”

“If that’s true, you’ll never leave,” Hugh replied ominously. “Meloetta, Shadow Ball!”

“Go, Darlene!” White shouted, releasing her Sawsbuck from her Poké Ball. The Normal/Grass-type Pokémon absorbed the Ghost-type attack, taking no damage. “Now, use Megahorn!”

The stag-like Pokémon ducked her head as her leaf-covered horns began to glow with a yellow-green light. Then she charged at Meloetta.

“Counter it with Fire Punch,” Hugh commanded.

But instead of countering the attack, Meloetta floated out of the way of the charging Sawsbuck and slammed her flaming fist into Darlene’s side. The collision sent her careening towards the grand piano, and Meloetta quickly used Psychic to stop her from crashing into the instrument.

“This is why I told you to _counter_ ,” Hugh hissed at her.

Meloetta snorted and hurled Darlene at White. She barely managed to avoid being crushed by her own Pokémon; fighting in a dress was more difficult than she’d expected it to be. She was very grateful that she’d thought to change into her sneakers before making the trek down to the basement – she couldn’t imagine having to fight in heels.

But she didn’t have long to feel relieved before Meloetta was attacking again. This time, it was with a different punch – Drain Punch. “Quick!” White shouted. “Use Double-Edge to stop it!”

Darlene charged at Meloetta, bowling her over and negating her attack. But as Darlene walked back to her Trainer’s side, she suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground – the recoil damage from Double-Edge had taken its toll on her.

“Darlene!” White cried. She knelt beside her Pokémon, but Darlene didn’t have any strength left to battle. She returned her to her Poké Ball and stood up.

“Give up,” Hugh said. “None of your Pokémon will ever be able to defeat Meloetta.”

White’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, really? I disagree.” She tossed a Poké Ball. “Meloetta, do you remember…Barbara?”

White’s Vullaby burst out of the Poké Ball and stared at her opponent with half-lidded eyes. Meloetta’s smug grin faded. Her hand became engulfed in flames, but she took a step back rather than forward. Hugh blinked twice and looked from White’s Pokémon to Meloetta. “That Vullaby…”

“Let me let you in on a little secret,” White said. “I’ve met Meloetta before. Bianca, too. We ran into her at a little place in Castelia City called Café Sonata.”

Hugh tilted his head to the side. “When was this?” he asked.

“Twelve years ago.”

His eyes widened. “Then, let me guess. When you found Meloetta, she was fighting that Vullaby,” he pointed to Barbara, “and you and Bianca saved her by catching the Vullaby. Am I right?”

White’s brow furrowed. “Well, that’s simplifying things a little bit,” she said, “but you’re right that Meloetta was being attacked by Vullaby when we found her, and ultimately I decided to catch the Vullaby. But how did you guess…?”

Hugh suddenly started laughing, and White could only stare at him. Why did he find it so funny? When he finally managed to stop laughing enough to speak, all he asked was, “Did you ever wonder why Meloetta was there in the first place? Or why the Vullaby was attacking her?”

“Um, no,” White admitted.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, grinning maniacally under the mask. “It was because of me.”

“Wh-what? How?” White exclaimed.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, Hugh’s playful demeanor faded. “It’s a long story, and you don’t want to hear it,” he growled.

It was the same response he’d given her every time she asked about something that happened in his past, and White was sick of it. “I can decide for myself what I want to hear,” she snapped. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to make you. Barbara, use Feint Attack!”

Barbara slowly stalked towards Meloetta, while Meloetta slowly backed away from her. But when Meloetta backed into the grand piano with nowhere else to go, Barbara suddenly lunged forward and smashed her with a powerful kick.

“Fight back with Thunderbolt!” Hugh demanded.

“Aerial Ace!” White commanded.

Barbara smashed into Meloetta beak-first, slamming her into the ground. But she couldn’t avoid the bolt of electricity that Meloetta shocked her with immediately afterwards.

However, despite the super effective hit, Barbara still managed to get back on her feet. “Way to hang in there, Barbara!” White exclaimed. “Now, let’s finish her off! Dark Pulse!”

Barbara fired a pulse of dark energy at Meloetta, but she flew up to avoid the attack. Getting off one successful hit against Barbara restored some of Meloetta’s confidence, and she shot another electric blast at the Vullaby.

“Dodge it and use Toxic!”

Barbara rolled out of the way of the attack and then spat goopy purple sludge at Meloetta. She absorbed the sludge, but her skin then turned a violent purple hue. White grinned; while she wasn’t proud to have badly poisoned a Pokémon, the poison would gradually weaken Meloetta even if her Pokémon couldn’t land attacks.

“Drain Punch!” Hugh shouted. Meloetta’s fist began to glow with a greenish light and she hurled herself at Barbara.

“Turn around,” White ordered. “Then use Feint Attack!”

Barbara turned around and let Meloetta’s fist collide with the bony shell that protected her posterior. Meloetta let out a cry and shook her hand, and Barbara took advantage of the distraction to smack Meloetta with another Feint Attack. Meloetta collapsed on the ground. Barbara readied herself for another attack, expecting Meloetta to get back up.

But she remained still on the floor. The purple hue of her skin faded – the poison had gone away. The only explanation for that happening on its own was that Meloetta had fainted.

Hugh was surprised that Meloetta had been defeated so easily, but then he remembered Meloetta’s earlier battle with the viscount’s Dewott. Dewott may not have won, but he must have done damage to Meloetta that she hadn’t fully recovered from. He scowled as Barbara turned around and leered up at him.

“Now, tell me,” White said, grabbing Hugh’s wrist. He shut his eyes, wincing. “How did _you_ bring Meloetta and Vullaby to Café Sonata?”

“I’ll tell you if you let go of my wrist,” he said in a strained voice. “Please.”

White let go of his wrist, and he opened his eyes and told her a story.

_This story begins with a fourteen-year-old boy being found by a kind guitarist on the streets of Castelia City. He took pity on the boy and bought him food and clothing. Then he brought the boy to the café where he worked so that he could have shelter for the night._

_That café was Café Sonata._

_The owner of the café was not as generous as the guitarist and said that the boy couldn’t stay because he didn’t have any musical talent. Then the boy sang for him. The owner and the guitarist were both astonished by how beautiful the boy’s voice was, even at fourteen. They were even more astounded when they learned that the boy had never been given any formal music education. The guitarist offered him music lessons, and the owner offered him a home at Café Sonata._

_The boy accepted both offers and stayed at Café Sonata for a year and a half. He improved his voice and learned to play piano, guitar, drumset, and various other percussion instruments as well. But one day, they were visited by a Pokémon that had a cry like a song. The boy was fascinated by her voice, but the owner was not. He sent out his own Pokémon to attack her._

_When the boy tried to figure out what the owner was doing, the owner ordered the boy to leave because he was no longer useful to the owner. He informed the boy that this was the Mythical Pokémon Meloetta, and he was going to capture her. He knew the boy’s voice would draw her to the café one day, so he allowed the boy to stay at Café Sonata. Now, the boy was only getting in his way._

_The boy was infuriated that the owner had merely been using him for his voice the whole time. He declared that he would never allow the owner to catch Meloetta, and he ran out onto the streets of Castelia City. He found a group of wild Vullaby and led them back to Café Sonata, where he got most of them to attack the owner and chase him away. However, one of them noticed the owner’s Pokémon fighting Meloetta and decided to join in._

_The owner’s Pokémon fled as soon as they realized their Trainer was gone. The boy knew he had to leave as well – the guitarist would be arriving for his lesson soon, but the boy didn’t want to take lessons from him any longer. He ran away and made two vows that day: one, that he would never return to Café Sonata again, and two, that he would never again sing for anyone but himself, so that no one could use him for his voice._

_That boy, if you haven’t figured it out yet, was me._

White gaped at him. Then her countenance morphed into a glare. “ _That’s_ why you lied to me about your voice? You thought I would _use_ you for it?”

“I told you that you didn’t want to hear the story,” Hugh said with a sigh.

“I can’t believe you didn’t trust me more than that,” White continued. “We were _friends_. I wouldn’t use my friend.”

“You run a theater, and you want good performers,” Hugh countered. “Even if you wouldn’t use me like that café owner did, you’d still want me to perform. I couldn’t risk losing our friendship because of an argument over that.”

White was taken aback by his last statement. She’d always assumed that their friendship meant more to her than it did to him, but…she’d never worried about losing it until she already had. And to hear him openly admit to how he felt about it was astonishing in and of itself – did he regret the way their friendship had fallen apart, too? Hugh had changed, but perhaps the part of him that saw her as a friend wasn’t as far gone as she’d feared.

But friend or no, Hugh was still a danger to the Theater. If she couldn’t get him to stop his activities as the Phantom, then he’d have to leave, one way or another. As the owner, it was her job to keep her employees safe. Hugh wasn’t her employee anymore.

“Fine. I know the truth now, so it doesn’t matter,” White said. “That’s not what I came down here for.”

“Sure, sure, you don’t want me to keep messing with the performers and performances. Fine,” Hugh said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll keep my hands off season 19. You have my word.”

White pursed her lips together. _That was too easy._ “What about _Don George_? Will you stay out of that one?”

“Well, I do want to make sure my musical is done right,” Hugh said airily. “If you don’t mind me giving some feedback every now and then, I promise I won’t sabotage the rehearsals.”

“What about the performance itself?”

Hugh didn’t reply.

White nodded at Barbara, who began slowly stalking towards Hugh. “You won’t sabotage the performance, will you?” she asked again.

He stared daringly at her. “The performance should run smoothly,” he said. “If it doesn’t, it’s no fault of mine.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Barbara suddenly launched herself into Hugh’s chest. The impact knocked him over, and he grunted in pain when he hit the ground. Barbara remained perched on top of him as she put a wing to his neck.

“Hugh,” White said warningly, “if you’re going to sabotage _Don George_ , I can’t allow you to stay here any longer. I don’t want to have to throw you out, but if it comes down to it, for the good of the Theater, I will. I swear it.”

“Get your Pokémon off me,” Hugh growled.

“Not until you promise not to sabotage the performance of _Don George_ ,” White said. She walked to Hugh’s side and stood next to him, where she could look down at his masked face.

Hugh exhaled forcefully. This wasn’t a threat he liked to make, but it was an effective one. “Get your Pokémon off me, or I’ll take off my mask.”

White’s eyes widened, but then she shook her head. “Barbara, arms,” she said, crouching down to pin Hugh’s left arm to the ground.

Barbara hopped off Hugh’s chest to pin down his right arm, but White underestimated Hugh’s strength. As soon as Barbara jumped off him, he pulled his left arm away from White and leaped to his feet. Then, in one fluid motion, he took off both his coat and mask and threw them to the floor.

White gasped and immediately covered her mouth with her hands, hoping to hide some of her look of disgust. She had thought his face was bad before, but this was even worse. She looked away, unable to bear the sight. Hugh looked at the ground, grimacing. He didn’t understand why White’s reaction hurt him so much more than anyone bar Whitley.

“You should leave now,” he muttered.

“No,” White whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t…I haven’t…”

Hugh grabbed her left wrist and jerked it backwards, forcing her to turn around. She squeezed her eyes shut. “If you’re going to stay, then _look_ at me,” he hissed. “If you can’t, _get out_.”

White slowly allowed the muscles in her eyelids to relax, gradually starting to open them. But she only took in Hugh’s face for a moment before flinching away again.

“Coward,” he snarled, yanking her arm towards him. Then he grabbed her hand with his other hand and bent it towards her body, causing excruciating pain to shoot up her arm. She yelped, and he let go.

White heard a rustle of cloth in front of her, and when she opened her eyes, Hugh had put his coat and mask back on. “Go,” he commanded.

Obediently, she returned Barbara and headed towards the red curtain, but paused after pushing the curtain aside. She let out a long sigh and glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll still keep you to your word, you know,” she said. “No messing with anyone until _Don George_.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgement, but White wasn’t done. “Thank you for being willing to compromise with me,” she said, and then slipped behind the curtain.

* * *

The next morning, after her flight and conversation with Whitley, White found a note on the desk in her office.

_Do you ever see yourself in fictional characters? I see a lot of myself in Don George. I see a lot of Whitley in Joy, too. It makes her perfect for the part. Don George and Joy make a good couple, don’t they?_

_…I didn’t say this last night because I was angry, but: thank you for trying._

It was the first time since the accident that he’d given a note directly to her. White smiled. They were small victories, but she’d won several last night. Now, she had forty-eight days to get the big win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started planning this scene out over a year ago. I even saved a little scrap of paper from that planning process where I wrote Hugh's "I've known nothing but suffering" quote to remind myself of his character motivations. But even so, I never actually intended to write it. I knew what events I wanted to happen, but I wasn't sure the exact sequence, and if I didn't write the scene, it didn't matter. (I also just really didn't want to write the battle against Meloetta because writing battles is hard.) But I decided after writing the last story that I wanted to talk about Hugh's time at Café Sonata - it's an important formative encounter for him, and it's the only important part of his past that I never get the chance to explore later on. My options were to expand the Café Sonata story into an actual detailed story, or find a narrative framing device in which to insert the Café Sonata story. And wouldn't you know it, but this scene was the perfect place to do that. So I faced my fears, buckled down, and actually managed to write this thing in a couple of days. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
> 
> Also, for the record, unless I decide to throw some more stories into this collection, this is the last chapter of solid Hugh & White action for a while. The, uh, original plan didn't include this much Hugh & White, I just really like them. A lot.
> 
> As always, feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the story!


	5. The Architect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story is a hypothetical scenario that takes place immediately following chapter 17 of the main story, and I recommend reading it after finishing said chapter. It describes the events that would have happened if White had agreed to come with Blake into the Phantom's lair.

In the Musical Theater’s dance studio, most of the walls were covered at least partially by mirrors. Pressing in the right spot on the right edge of one of these mirrors released a hidden catch that opened the door to the ballet manager’s office, which had belonged to Iris Giry since the room had been constructed, and was the only office not located in the office wing. No one knew exactly why the door was hidden in such a manner; according to Mrs. Giry, who knew the architect personally, he thrived on unconventionality and thus made several odd design choices in his plans – her office door was one, and Reflection Hall was another.

The office itself was relatively plain in its design: a small rectangular room with a door to enter and another door on the wall opposite it, which was always locked. The rumor was that the door hid some terrible secret in the ballet manager’s past, which was why she possessed the only key to the door. The truth, however, was that even Iris had no idea what was behind the mysterious door – she only knew that it hadn’t been in the original blueprints for the office.

It was to this mysterious, locked door that White Lefévre brought Blake of Chenonceau. From her pocket she produced the master keyring which could unlock any door or cabinet in the Musical Theater, as long as she used the right key. She slid a small, silver key into the keyhole and slid the deadbolt back, then turned the knob and opened the door.

This led, of course, into the network of secret passages in the walls of the Theater.

Before closing and locking the door, White pulled out a couple of her Poké Balls to examine them. She found the one she was looking for and closed the door; they were left in complete darkness. White released the Pokémon she held in her hand and said to Blake, “You might want to squint in a second, so it doesn’t blind you.”

Then, to her Pokémon, she commanded, “Solly, use Flash!”

In an instant, the corridor was filled with dazzling light. Then, after a few seconds, the light dimmed down and Blake could see their surroundings. Not that there was much to look at – White, her glowing Duosion, and the door they just came through were the only other objects of interest in the corridor. 

White nodded to Blake and started off at a brisk pace down the corridor. Down one staircase, winding around to a shorter staircase, coming down a third, and finally White stopped and whispered to Solly, “Flashlight,” and the steady glow illuminating the area around them focused into a single beam coming from the pink diamond between Solly’s eyes. Then they took a few steps more and turned a corner, and Blake could see a faint red glow some ways away.

“Is that… _his_ …?”

“I believe so.”

As much as Blake wanted to observe this place that Whitley had so adamantly told him nothing about – aside from the darkness – he knew that they would have the greatest success with the element of surprise on their side. So, he said nothing else until Solly’s Flash light illuminated a pool of water in front of them. “What’s this?” he asked in a low voice.

“The lake,” White replied quietly. “He lives on the other side.”

“Well then,” Blake said, tugging off his jacket, “I hope you’re up for some swimming.”

White shook her head. “There’s no need for that. There’s an invisible bridge that crosses the lake.”

“An invisible bridge?” Blake repeated dubiously.

“It’s no different than the tricks in Pokémon Gyms. Come on.” White took a step forward and almost immediately jumped back with a little gasp.

“What’s the problem?”

“The bridge…it’s…” She made a gesture with her hand, searching for the right word. “It’s… _slanted_. Instead of a bridge across the water, it’s a ramp into the water.”

Blake grimaced. “He must have destroyed the supports on the other end to keep Whitley from escaping across it. Unless…he anticipated our coming here…”

“I…don’t know,” White admitted, gazing out across the lake. Everything seemed still and quiet on the other side; the furniture that she could make out was eerily deserted. Where were they? Certainly not in the main room. Perhaps, then, it would be safe to turn on the light on this side of the lake…

White quietly called Solly over and gestured for it to scan the walls with its light. They were bland, empty gray stone – except for two shiny gray switches. She had ignored these on her last visit to the basement, wanting to keep the element of surprise on her side. Now, she headed straight for them – and hesitated. Which was the switch for the light on this side of the lake…?

* * *

 

_“Left for close, and right for far. They even have the L and R in them, so it’s easy to remember.”_

_I nodded as the young man demonstrated with deft fingers which switch was which. After a few flicks, he left both lights on and walked over to the shore of the lake, facing away from me. I was able to get a good look at him then; he was a little taller and thinner than me, dressed in a red track jacket and tight black pants. He wasn’t wearing socks or shoes, which was odd, but he also had a black beanie fit snugly over his head that let a few strands of dark blue hair stick out from underneath like little curly spikes. He was cute!_

_But who was he, exactly? No one was supposed to know that this part of the basement even existed besides me, the architect, the electrician, the plumber, and the builders. But none of those explanations made sense: the builders were all gone by now; this guy was way too young to be designing buildings; I met the electrician and the plumber in person. Maybe he was a homeless kid who happened to wander in here? That would explain the clothes, but that didn’t explain why he acted like he owned the place. I figured I should just ask._

_“Excuse me,” I said as I approached him. “Who are you, exactly?”_

_He turned around, and I couldn’t help but stare a little upon seeing his face for the first time. Even then, I was only seeing half of it – the other half was covered by a white mask. He narrowed his eyes at me – they were a deep, deep red, like blood – and answered, “I’m Hugh. I designed this place.”_

_There was a hint of irritation in his tone, and maybe it was because of the staring, but  my eyes merely widened and I kept staring at him because this kid, this kid was the mysterious master architect who invented Musical Shows and designed the brand-new show wing? He was maybe a year or two older than me! He couldn’t have been telling the truth, could he?_

_He must’ve been reading my thoughts, because he scowled and said, “I thought you of all people wouldn’t underestimate the skills of youth, Ms. Lefévre.”_

_I dropped my gaze to my feet, shame burning in my cheeks. We stood there in silence for a few moments, and I eventually directed my attention to the opposite shore of the lake._

_There appeared to be a few pieces of furniture over there – a piano, a desk, and…a bed, maybe? I knew there were also rooms in the wall, where the plumber and the electrician were working last week. They used their Pokémon to cross the lake, but Hugh didn’t appear to be a Pokémon Trainer. Did he plan to swim across it whenever he wanted to get to the other side?_

_“I have a question,” I said. “Why did you decide to keep the lake in here? It seems inconvenient.”_

_“It would be inconvenient to pump it all out, too.” He shrugged, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “It wasn’t my idea to keep it. But it’s unconventional. I like it.”_

_“Whose idea was it, then?” I asked._

_He shrugged again. “I don’t know her name,” he said. “But she helped me set this up, too. Watch.”_

_Hugh stepped out onto the lake’s surface, and my jaw dropped. He was standing in midair a few inches above the surface of the lake! He turned to face me and grinned smugly when he saw my expression. “Reflect makes a great invisible walkway,” he explained._

_I took a step forward to follow him, expecting him to turn around and continue to the other side, but he didn’t move. Instead, his playful grin faded and he eyed me warily. “What are you doing?” he asked._

_“I…wanted to look at the other side,” I answered hesitantly._

_“Not permitted,” he said firmly, folding an arm across his chest._

_“Why not?” I asked. His behavior was odd – all I did was take a step towards him and suddenly he was acting so defensive._

_“It’s private.”_

_“It’s in my Theater.”_

_“It’s_ under _your Theater.”_

_“Still my property.”_

_“It’s my home.”_

_I blinked. “Y-your home?”_

_Hugh narrowed his eyes at me. “What did you think I wanted it for?”_

_Well, I had wondered in the past why he would want to add his own room to the Musical Theater’s cellars. The furnishings and plumbing he requested seemed homey, but I never expected that someone would actually elect to live underground. “What happened to your old home?”_

_“I haven’t had a home in eleven years. But I don’t need your pity,” he added in a low voice._

_I frowned. I didn’t feel right letting my best architect and advisor sequester himself deep underground for no good reason that I could see. At the same time, it wasn’t really my place to tell him how to live his life. The best I could do was offer him something else. I was a businesswoman, after all. “Okay, then,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’m glad you’re here, because I need your help.”_

_He didn’t scoff, but I could see a disdainful look in his eyes as he asked, “Doing what?”_

_“Well, this renovation to the theater is nice and all, but to make musicals you need staff,” I began. “The Pokémon performers won’t be a problem, since we have all of the BW Agency’s actors at our disposal. However, we’re a bit lacking in the human resources department.”_

_Hugh narrowed his eyes at me and his lips parted slightly as if he was going to say something, but he evidently thought better of it and shut his mouth._

_“I’ve already reached out to actors and musicians who were involved in the theater before, and most of them were eager to return,” I continued. “But that’s not my big concern right now; I have plenty of connections in show biz, so I can connect with performers just fine. It’s the backstage crew that I have a shortage of.”_

_“And what makes you think I know anyone?” Hugh asked darkly._

_“Oh, no. I’m not asking you to recruit people,” I chuckled. “I’m recruiting you.”_

_“What?” He seemed genuinely taken aback by my statement._

_“How would you like to be a stagehand?” I asked. “From what Iris tells me, you’ve been sneaking around the Theater unseen for two and a half years. I can use a sneaky stagehand like that.” Hugh didn’t respond, so I continued, “I can’t keep paying you in construction projects, but perhaps a salary of, say, 200,000 yen a month will suffice?”_

_His eyes widened, and I could tell his immediate impulse was to accept it eagerly. However, he must not have been an impulsive man, because his expression changed to something more pensive before he finally shook his head. “I can’t do it.”_

_“Of course you can do it,” I assured him. “It’s only a matter of whether you want to.”_

_“Well, I don’t want to,” Hugh retorted._

_“Why not?” I asked calmly, though I was sure the irritation showed on my face. “I’d really appreciate the help of someone with experience. And you can still act as my advisor, if you’d like.”_

_He still wanted to argue with me, I could tell. However, it looked like he was busy having an internal argument with himself. He closed his eyes for a few moments, and some side won out, for when he opened his eyes again I could see a rebellious spark glowing in them. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll do it.”_

_“Great!” I beamed. He was an odd fellow – why would he act like taking this job is some form of rebellion? I hoped I would find out by working with him. “You can start work tomorrow, if you’d like. I’ll meet you in the left wing of the stage.”_

* * *

 

White’s hand hovered over the left light switch, and she finally let her hand drop without touching it. She missed the smart, showy kid that she hired all those years ago. He had changed since then; she had seen the evidence of that firsthand tonight and the night of the masquerade. So why couldn’t she face him without remembering who he had once been…what he had once meant to her?

_Because it’s what he still means to me._

“Blake,” White said, not bothering to keep her voice down. He tried to shush her, but she shook her head and said, “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” he hissed.

She had already returned Solly and was backing towards the corridor. “I can’t help you, Blake. I can’t fight my friend. I’m going back…”

Before Blake could protest any more, White turned around and fled from the hall, receding footsteps echoing behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This "hypothetical scenario" was originally part of the main story of PotM. First I wanted to alternate the Hugh/Whitley and Blake/White plotlines in each chapter until they converged, but the Hugh/Whitley plotline wound up being way longer. So I decided to move this chapter right after the current chapter 17, which made sense, but then the switch back to the Hugh/Whitley plotline was a little more jarring because it starts chronologically *before* the Blake/White plotline starts. And then, because the chapter was starting to feel a little pointless anyway - 2300 words just to give White a reason to not be in the climax - I decided to cut it out and change the last two paragraphs of the chapter before to accomplish that same task.
> 
> Yes, I know this chapter has a lot of Hugh & White in it, but hey, I only said there wouldn't be *solid* Hugh & White in the next few side stories. Blake's in this one, too.
> 
> ...just leave me a comment, letting me know what you think.


	6. The Chandelier Accident (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place immediately following Part 1 of The Chandelier Accident and focuses on what happened to Hugh after he ran away from White. It's split into two parts because this part contains story spoilers for chapter 19 of the main story, so I advise that you read this after reading chapter 19 of the main story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...this story was supposed to go up at the same time as chapter 19, but with how late that chapter got delayed, I just didn't even think about posting this one. Of course, if you're reading this months in the future, it really doesn't matter to you if a chapter got delayed or not. So I'll just shut up and let you get to the story.

I was not surprised by her reaction to my face; I was surprised by how much it hurt. Since I got the mask, I had grown used to looking at people without them recoiling in fear or disgust. Plus, White was the closest thing that I had ever had to a friend. So seeing White terrified at seeing my face made me feel like a dagger had been driven into my chest.

Determined to save any shred of dignity that I could still cling to, I fled the room, pulling my beanie as low over my face as it would go. Miraculously, I encountered no one on the way to or inside the dance studio, so I could safely return to my secret world within the walls – where I belonged.

Once I was back inside the secret corridor, I slowed my pace down to a walk, finally allowing myself to feel the pain on my face. I gently touched the gash on my cheek, the cut on my lip, and finally the small puncture beneath my eye. I could not tell if the offending pieces of crystal were still loitering at the sites where they had wounded me; I hoped they would fall out on their own if they were. In all my time living on my own, I never learned how to take care of wounds – the tissues in my body never healed properly, so I just avoided getting injured to the best of my ability. I could only wash my face in the lake and let it heal as much as possible. I might need more makeup soon.

As I crossed the bridge on the lake that led to my home, I suddenly became aware of a strange melody that floated into my ears, promising me peace, calm, tranquility. It was enthralling, and I found myself starting to succumb to the power of the song. But even as I did, my mind was whirring, trying to identify the song’s source.

Meloetta.

How dare she try to control me, to toy with my emotions so? Even now, in my most vulnerable moment, she was still meddling in my affairs. Even if those affairs were just wallowing in my despair and my anger, I could not stand the thought of Meloetta trying to control the life I had fought so hard to live, just as she always did. I wished she would go away and leave me alone.

A mix of anger and calm logic washed over me, pushing out Meloetta’s song of tranquility. As I was cursed with a face that made people and Pokémon fear me, I ought to take advantage of it when I could. I whirled around to face Meloetta and yelled, “Go away! Leave this place!”

Meloetta’s song stopped. But to my simultaneous rage and joy, she did not flee or flinch in terror. She simply stared at me with her clear blue eyes, glittering with light and sadness. It was so frustrating – the one time I _wanted_ someone to fear my face, she did not. And at the same time, I was ecstatic to meet someone who saw past my marred flesh and accepted me for who I was…just like Mack.

The memory was almost enough to make me cry.

I drew a shaky breath and turned away, continuing across the lake. In such a short time, I had gone from feeling wounded to angry to blissful to sad, and there were so many questions swirling in my head that I didn’t know what to think. I was exhausted and my arm and face were throbbing painfully. I sank onto the cold tile floor of my home and rested my forehead on my right arm.

My instincts jolted me back into alertness as soon as I realized I was being moved. Meloetta was lifting me with her psychic powers. When I looked at her, I saw none of the light that had lingered in her eyes before; they held only cold, hard calculation and I felt oddly relieved, although wary.

She put me down by the side of the lake and examined my face thoroughly. Then her eyes glowed, and the shards of crystal in my lip and under my eye floated out of their wounds. The piece that slashed my cheek must have fallen out already.

Next, Meloetta gently scooped water out of the lake onto my face, washing away all the sticky blood. It stung, but I did not let my pain show. The water washed away the makeup remaining on my face, too. Yet somehow, she was not bothered by the ancient scars it hid – those _precious_ mementos of my mother.

When she was finished washing my face, Meloetta vanished – an oddly irritating habit of hers, teleporting whenever and wherever she pleased. Though it may have proven to be a necessary evil of sorts that day, since it was probably Meloetta who teleported us to safety just as the chandelier was starting to shatter. I wished she could have helped us sooner, so that I might not have exposed my face to White.

I slowly brought a hand to the deformed side of my face and quickly pulled it away. I had grown accustomed to covering it with my mask, which made me feel a little more normal, a little more…human. I covered my scars with makeup instead of the mask for that very same reason. With all my coverings stripped away, I now felt ugly, vulnerable, hopeless. I didn’t understand how Meloetta could accept it so easily. Even Mack had been afraid of my face, at first. We were so young then that it did not bother me the way it did now.

I propped my upper body up on my arms and caught sight of my reflection in the lake. My breath caught in my throat, and I looked away. I didn’t realize it was possible to look any worse than I already did, but I had accomplished it. The slaps my mother administered to my good cheek were marring enough. These injuries were so much worse. And just like the old ones, they’d never go away.

Meloetta suddenly reappeared by my side with a towel and a bandage. I was a little surprised; I had thought she was done taking care of me. But I stayed obediently still as Meloetta gently dried off my face, and she applied the bandage to the gash on my cheek. That would go away once the scar tissue formed. She glanced between my face and the towel and finally, reluctantly, moved the towel aside to reveal what was lying underneath: my mask.

I instantly grabbed the mask and carefully fitted it onto my face. I relaxed a little with my deformity hidden once more from the world, and I was able to organize my thoughts. I first turned my attention to Meloetta, since she was standing right beside me. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Meloetta’s eyes widened a little, and she flew over to my desk to grab a pen and paper. Using telekinesis to write in her delicate, looping script, she wrote a message on a paper and handed it to me.

“I want to see this Theater filled with skilled performers – the people who truly appreciate the intricacies of art and music. Especially you. You’re an incredibly gifted musician, and your talents are wasted hiding out in the wings. They would be wasted if you were dead, too. So, simply put, I aim to keep you alive and get you onstage.”

I chuckled hollowly upon finishing the message. “I’m sure now you understand that your second aim is pointless,” I said. Meloetta shook her head fiercely. “I can’t perform onstage with a face like this. All I could play is a living nightmare.”

Meloetta furiously tore the letter out of my hands and wrote in a messier hand, “No! You wear a mask and makeup to hide your face now, so it is only a simple matter to combine those for a specific performance. Trust me, I have thought through all of this already.”

I frowned. “How could you possibly have had time to think through all of this when you have only seen my face for less than an hour?”

Another scribble: “This is not the first time I have seen your face. In the past, I removed your mask while you slept out of curiosity. It took some time to adjust to it, but I have no qualms with seeing it now.”

“You took off my mask when I was sleeping?” I shouted. “Why would you…what could have possessed you to make you consider that an option?”

“It was only a matter of time,” Meloetta wrote in reply. “You cannot hide your face forever, Hugh. I wish to see it in the theater, and not just behind the curtain.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say your wish won’t come true,” I snapped. “If I did that, I’d have to show my face to White again.”

“And is that so bad?”

“Of course it is!” I fumed. “She knows what’s under the mask now. There’s no way she could want me to work for her, let alone perform for her. I ought to just resign now and save myself the humiliation of being fired.”

It was a painful decision to make. I had started to trust that White was a good person – I’d only sung poorly for her, so she couldn’t be after me for my voice like that damn café owner. But she was afraid of my face, just like the others. While my heart told me to trust her, logic dictated otherwise. The damage had been done. I did not dare show my face, masked or not, around White again.

My emotions were still running too high for me to write a letter of resignation, so I opted to channel my thoughts into music instead. The resulting melody started with dissonant chords that resolved into more harmonious ones before transitioning into a continuous series of arpeggios with lots of tempo changes. As I scribbled the notes down on a blank piece of sheet music, a coherent, spiteful thought drifted into my mind: I didn’t want to work for someone who had almost killed me, anyways.


	7. Becoming Hugh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story is a little different than all the others so far; rather than telling a specific event, it's a reflection from Hugh's POV on his life and the various identities he has assumed throughout it. It can be read anytime after finishing chapter 21 of the main story - though I would recommend reading it before chapter 25.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter single-handedly killed my motivation to work on this story for a good two months, but it's incredibly important to understanding Hugh's character. So, please enjoy this installment of TMA where White is actually mentioned less than five times :)

_“You know that I told you to call me Hugh. But what if I also told you, my dear, that my name…the name that I shed because it bears the scars that my dear mother inflicted upon it it…is Erik?”_

Erik Matisse.

It’s a name I haven’t thought about in a long, long time. It was the name my father gave me. My mother hated me too much to give me a name, and she only used it when she was mad at me – though she almost never addressed me if she _wasn’t_ mad at me. I think my mother would have abandoned me in a dumpster the first chance she got if it hadn’t been for my father.

My father was…alright, I suppose. I wasn’t the son he wanted, but I was the son he got. He seemed to accept that, unlike my mother. The problem was, my father seemed to be working all the time, so I didn’t get to spend much time with him. I’m still not entirely sure what his job was, but I know it had something to do with being a Pokémon Trainer. He wanted me to be a Pokémon Trainer like him, which is why he convinced my mother to let me go to the Trainer’s School.

I never actually got a Pokémon, though. My mother won _that_ fight.

Being the only one without a Pokémon at a school for Pokémon Trainers wasn’t a good combination. Having my face constantly wrapped in bandages didn’t do me any favors, either. I was ostracized. Isolated. No one was kind to me.

And in all that, my one beacon of light was my little sister, Mackenzie.

Both of my parents liked her better than me, and they didn’t hesitate to admit it. She was younger than me by less than a year. I think they wanted her to replace me – they wanted a child they could actually love. They kept us apart as much as possible, afraid I’d hurt her or worse. Before she started school, they frequently sent her to our grandfather’s house to keep her busy and away from me.

But after she started school, the rules started to change. Without our parents hovering over our shoulders, we were free to talk to each other and play with each other all we wanted. It was the first time that I had actually had fun with another person. I started to look forward to going to school and dread going home each day.

I remember one day where I was waiting for Mack’s class to be let out for recess and a boy from my class came up to me – Leo Piangi. He was a really shy kid back then – the kind of kid who would have been the perfect target for bullying, except he was so shy that the bullies barely even acknowledged his existence. Of all the kids in our class, he was the one who I felt the most drawn to; in another universe, we might have even been friends.

But he couldn’t see past my face.

I imagine he’d been dared or bullied into coming over and talking to me that day. He stuttered as he asked me if it was true that Mack was my sister, and he looked horrified when I said yes. She found us at that point, and Leo asked her why she chose to play with me. He claimed I was dangerous, and he didn’t want her to get hurt. “Erik is my brother and he’d never hurt anyone!” she declared. “Leave him alone, Leo!”

His face turned red and he ran off. We’ve never spoken since.

Mack always had such faith in me; I don’t understand where it came from. Maybe it was all that time she spent with our grandfather. Yet it was that faith that made everything fall apart…

I don’t know exactly how our father died. A guy who worked with my dad – and apparently became the Driftveil Gym Leader later – visited us and told us that there had been an accident, and they never recovered his body. I knew my mother would be ruthless without my father around to keep her in check, and she would hopefully be too distracted by her grief to pay attention to me. It was the perfect time for me to run away.

But while I was packing my few valuable belongings, Mackenzie came up to the attic – she wanted to talk to me while our mother was asleep. Of course, she noticed what I was doing, and she pestered me about it until I told her. I expected her to be sad, or perhaps angry, but she just said that it would be difficult for me on my own. Then she got this determined look on her face that I remember clearly because it said without words exactly what she planned to do – she was going with me, no matter how much I protested.

I wonder sometimes if I could have convinced her to stay somehow, that I would be able to survive on my own, that it would be safer for her to stay with our mother. I wish I had tried. But I didn’t think I would be able to persuade her otherwise, and deep inside, I didn’t want to leave her behind. So, I just promised myself that I wouldn’t let her get hurt, and we ran away that night.

We didn’t have any sort of plan of what we were going to do or where we were going to go. But we quickly realized that our biggest concern was food – we hadn’t brought any, and we didn’t know which wild plants were edible. We improvised for the first couple of days, using different tactics to get strangers to give us food. However, after that, word of our disappearance was starting to spread, and we were recognized by a person in Virbank City who was giving us lunch. We got away from her with the help of Mack’s Purrloin and stowed away on a ship bound for Driftveil City.

By the time we got to Driftveil, I realized that if we were going to survive on our own, we might have to take a page from Purrloin’s book and steal what we needed from other people. I knew about Driftveil Market and figured that would be a great place to purloin food. But Mack – good, kind, gentle Mack – didn’t feel comfortable stealing, and she wanted to find a way for us to earn money to pay for the things we needed. However, we couldn’t afford to be recognized, so Mack decided to disguise herself as a boy and look for work while I stole things from the market so we could sustain ourselves.

Of course, it wasn’t easy for a seven-year-old to find a job; I think she might have had to lie about her age, too. But she eventually found an old woman and her daughter who were looking for someone to help out around the house – the daughter was pregnant, and her husband worked in the shipping industry and traveled frequently. They fed her while she was there and even offered to let her live with them, but she declined the second offer and asked for financial compensation instead. They couldn’t offer her much, but it was enough for her to afford food for me.

Once Mack started working for them, there was no need for me to steal food from the market – in fact, there was no need for me to go into town at all. I didn’t have a viable disguise for my face, so it was safer for me to stay in the forest west of Driftveil, where we had made a temporary shelter.

And so, for the next few months, things were relatively nice for us. Mack worked all day, came home at night, told me about her day, and went to sleep. She had Sundays off, so we played together with Purrloin on Sundays. When Mack was working, I usually spent the day building up our shelter and singing to pass the time.

The bandages that our mother always made me wear had gotten dirty and torn over time, and Mack eventually forced me to take them off – while she was initially disgusted at the sight of my true face, she got over it quickly. The fact that she could tolerate it was less significant to me back then.

But as all good things do, this somewhat blissful existence had to come to an end. It started on an unassuming summer day, when I woke up to a note from my sister telling me that her employer – or Sissy, as Mack called her – was having her baby, and Sissy’s mother – who went by Nana – wanted Mack to stay with them through the night. I was upset that I wouldn’t be able to see my sister for a whole day, but I got over it quickly and continued with my usual daily routine.

I expected that Mack would be back by the time that I woke up the next morning, but she wasn’t. I was a little worried by that point – not for her well-being, but for my own. We didn’t have any way to preserve food yet, so Mack never bought more than a couple days’ worth of food at a time. I had eaten a little more than usual the day before to stave off the loneliness, so I would have to ration my meals that day if she didn’t come back.

When she still hadn’t returned by the morning after that, I started to get concerned for her well-being. If Nana had let Mack return the morning that Sissy went into labor to tell me what was going on, why wouldn’t I have heard anything else from her in two days? But first things first, I had to get myself some food – I was _starving_. I wrapped a scarf that Mack had bought around my face and headed into the city.

But when I slipped into Driftveil Market to try to steal something to eat, I discovered that there were security guards making rounds of the market keeping an eye on people as they came in and out. There had never been security guards at the market before. It was impossible for me to pickpocket anything while they were around, so I decided that I should just go to Nana and Sissy’s house directly and look for my sister. She had shown me where it was once so that I could find it in case of emergency and told me the fake names she had made up for us so that Nana and Sissy wouldn’t connect us to the missing children from Aspertia.

I knocked on the door, and the old woman I assumed was Nana opened it. She looked incredibly sad for someone whose daughter had just given birth two days ago. “Hi, I’m Riko,” I said. “I’m Max’s brother.” That was as far as I got before the old woman screamed and slammed the door shut.

I was stunned and double-checked to make sure that the scarf was still in place. It was. So what merited that reaction?

A moment later, the door flung open again, and the old woman gripped my arm with surprising strength. She held a phone in her other hand. “You did it, didn’t you?” she asked hoarsely.

“Do what?” I asked, bewildered.

“You killed her. Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

By this point, I was starting to think I had come to the wrong house – this lady was clearly insane. “I haven’t killed anyone! What are you talking about?” I exclaimed, trying to yank my arm free of her grip.

The old woman stared into my eyes, the only part of my face that she could see. Her grip loosened slightly, and I took the opportunity to pull my arm free. Then she said, “Your name is Erik, isn’t it?”

I took a step back. I didn’t know how she’d found out, but if she knew my real name, she knew where I came from. And that made her a threat. “S-so what if it is?” I asked, trying and failing to sound intimidating.

She looked at me warily. “Mackenzie is dead, and you’re the one who killed her.”

The whole world suddenly pitched sideways, and I staggered away from the woman’s door. Before I could even form a coherent thought, the woman was starting towards me, and I sprinted away as quickly as I was able. It wasn’t terribly fast, as I was still pretty disoriented, but it was enough to outrun an old woman.

I stopped to catch my breath when I didn’t think she was following me anymore, but her words caught up with me, too. Mackenzie was _dead_? It wasn’t possible. But where had she been the past two days? Maybe the old woman was mistaken about it all. After all, I would know if I had killed someone. But on the other hand, she knew my name and my sister’s name. She couldn’t possibly have guessed that. How could she have known?

The only way I could get answers, I decided, was to do some research. There was a public library in Driftveil City, and public libraries had publicly available computers. With the scarf on, I shouldn’t be recognized. So, I headed to Driftveil Public Library to research recent news stories and stumbled across the news article that would change my life forever.

_Missing Aspertia girl dies in Driftveil_

I can’t recite the article word-for-word, but I know it was thorough enough to give me a good idea of what had happened. Mack was found near the garbage bins behind Driftveil Market barely conscious and covered in bruises, and someone took her to the hospital for treatment. When she got there, the doctors realized that she was bleeding internally, and they couldn’t save her. But apparently, during the treatment, she kept mumbling the words “Erik” and “no”.

Afterwards, they released a couple of sketches of her – one with the hat and glasses she wore for her disguise on, and one with them off – to see if anyone could identify her, and both Nana and our mother recognized her. According to Nana, Mack had asked to go to Driftveil Market, but she never came back. They talked to the vendors in the market and one of them recalled seeing Mack that day but didn’t notice her buying anything. What did my _wonderful_ mother have to say on the topic?

“Erik is violent and mentally unstable. He forced her to run away with him, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have attacked her himself.”

And so, naturally, since they had nothing else to go on, they decided the primary suspect in Mack’s assault was me.

What do I think happened? Well, the only reason she’d want to go to the market was to buy something. She was witnessed at the market, so she obviously made it there. But when she was found, there weren’t any purchases with her. So, I suspect that she bought something rare or valuable from a vendor who chose not to come forward or wasn’t around to make a statement, and when she left the market, she was mugged and left behind the market to die.

For the record, I didn’t come up with this theory back then. I was too distraught by the loss of the only person who had ever been kind to me in my life to wonder how her death might have come about. It wasn’t until years later, long after I stopped going by the name Erik, that I could think back on the event with enough mental acuity to try explaining how it happened.

I stopped thinking of myself as Erik as soon as I left Driftveil, actually. I always heard it in either my mother’s or my sister’s voice. Both voices would have caused me to cry, but for completely different reasons. For six years, then, I had no name; I was just the monster who lived in the woods. Even if someone had addressed me as Erik, I wouldn’t have responded. In my mind, Erik Matisse had died with Mackenzie.

When I came to Castelia City, the guitarist who helped me asked me what my name was. I told him I didn’t have one. He didn’t press the issue then, but he introduced me to the owner of Café Sonata as Tobias. The owner took to calling me Toby. I didn’t hate the name, but it was merely the name of a homeless kid who was getting free music lessons. I left it behind at the café.

It was about a month later that I was faced with the question of “who am I” again. This time, it was after I started living at the Musical Theater and leaving notes with advice for Iris Giry. I snuck into her office one night with a note pointing out how noisy the dressing rooms get before Musicals and found a note already lying there addressed “to my anonymous advisor” asking who I was and how I noticed so many small problems in the Theater. I was torn between simply ignoring the note and responding to it, but I knew that if I wanted to get any of my large-scale plans enacted – which I was already starting to form – I would need to get the management to trust me, and this would be the first step in that direction.

But who was I, really? I wasn’t the monster in the woods anymore. No, after my time at Café Sonata, I was starting to think of myself as a musician. However, with how poorly that time had ended, I didn’t want to identify myself as a musician – that would inevitably end with Iris wanting to hear my talents. I couldn’t have that. There was only one other thing that I considered myself something of an authority on: architecture. I’d occupied most of my time in the forest with building things, and I had been reading about it in my free time at the café. I could call myself an architect.

That just left a name. I’d been without one for so long that I thought I didn’t need one anymore, but I didn’t feel like I had a full identity without a name. I considered using Tobias, but I still didn’t like the name. I wanted to pick a different name, one that felt more like me. My gaze started to wander around Iris’s office, searching for inspiration, and finally a report lying on her desk caught my attention. It was a claims report describing a defective Prop that someone had received. I still remember exactly what it said:

“The interior petals are in decent condition; they are slightly out of alignment, but they can be fixed with a little time and patience. The exterior petals, however, are in much worse condition. Some are bent, some are torn, and half of them are an ugly yellow hue.”

Something about the description of that flower struck a chord with me, and instantly, I knew what my new name would be. “My name is Hugh,” I wrote, “and I am an architect with a passion for music.” The note continued on, naturally, but that’s the only line I remember clearly.

However, even the name Hugh seemingly didn’t stick for that long. I used it for as long as my employment at the Musical Theater lasted, which ended about four years after I picked the name. Once my only friend had seen my face, I no longer had anyone to call me Hugh, and I didn’t feel like Hugh anymore. Hugh was the trusted advisor to the manager of the Theater. Hugh was the master architect who loved music. Hugh was the misaligned man who could be fixed with a little time and patience.

Without anyone to respect or care about me, I couldn’t be that man anymore.

So, I slipped into the shadows. I abandoned the identity of Hugh. I would have abandoned the Theater, too, if it wasn’t for Meloetta. So I stayed, causing mischief for the cast and crew. And before long, rumors of the Phantom of the Musical were starting to spread. I liked that name – it seemed fitting for how I felt. So, thanks to the superstitious employees of the Theater, I adopted a new identity – the identity of the Phantom.

I suppose a thank you is in order for Meloetta. She never tried to tell me that I needed to change; she just thought that I could convince White to let me perform. And while Meloetta never managed to get me excited to perform onstage, she did at least convince me that it was worth my while to stay at the Theater – that I had enough influence over White that I could get her to run it the way I wanted it to be run. And if I hadn’t stayed at the Theater…I never would have met Whitley.

Alright, that’s not technically true. Whitley lived at the Theater for over a year before I quit, and while we’d never spoken, I did know who she was. It pains me to admit that that was only because she was infamous among the Theater staff for being the worst singer out of all the chorus girl trainees.

When I met her in the garden that day, I recognized who she was. And I knew that Iris Giry had faith in her potential. And I saw her compassion when she chose not to stare at my hands. And so, for the first time, when she sang, I listened. Past the technical flaws, past the lack of heart, I finally heard the potential of her voice. When she told me her story, I knew in an instant that I had to teach her. I could unlock that potential of hers – I had to do it. For me, for her, for my sister.

However, I obviously couldn’t teach her as the Phantom. I didn’t think she would let Hugh teach her – if she knew anything about him, it was only from the rumors of his untimely demise. She had given me the perfect identity to assume to become her teacher, though – the Angel of Music. So I took on the identity of the Angel just like I had taken on the identities of monster and phantom over the years. I never thought that it was a form of lying – when I was around Whitley, I _was_ the Angel of Music, her infallible teacher of music. When I wasn’t teaching her, I was the mysterious, commanding Phantom. For a time, I was comfortable switching between these two separate identities. But I should have known that one person could not last long with two identities at once.

As Whitley grew older, I slowly fell in love. And as the feelings grew, I started to feel less like an angel and a phantom. I felt like a broken man pretending to be an angel and a phantom. It hurt hearing Whitley continue to call me Angel when I felt more like Hugh every day. So, when she finally asked to see me in person, my heart leaped at the chance. I could finally do it. I could leave the Phantom and the Angel behind, become Hugh for good.

And then Meloetta intervened, tricked her into taking off my mask, ruined my chances of ever approaching Whitley as a respectable man.

After that, I thought I would have to stay the ethereal Angel and Phantom. No matter how much I wanted to be Hugh to her, she would fear him just like White. Yet, Whitley asked…she wanted to know how she should address me. I couldn’t have asked for a better-worded question. She didn’t want to know who I was, or what my name was – I couldn’t answer those questions in full. But as for how I wanted her to address me, that was obvious. I wanted her to call me Hugh.

By the time of the masquerade, I had fully accepted Hugh as my identity again. The Phantom wasn’t the one to write _Don George Triumphant_ – that had always been Hugh’s _magnum opus_. The Phantom wanted to directly interfere with the rehearsals; Hugh had promised to leave them alone. Hugh was the one who inserted himself into the production, hoping it would help Whitley fall in love with him. Hugh was the one who desperately wanted Whitley to live with him forever. _I_ desperately wanted Whitley to live with me forever. I was tired of being the Phantom. I still am. That’s not who I am anymore.

I am Hugh. I am a former trusted advisor to the manager of the Theater. I am a master architect and a musician. I am a misaligned man who can fix myself with a little time and patience. I am neither the Phantom nor the Angel of Music. I am neither Tobias nor Erik Matisse. Even if I don’t have anyone to respect or care about me, I do not have to change who I am.

I told Whitley that my name was Erik. But that’s really not true. I was born as Erik, but I have become Hugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story had a very similar origin to chapter 4, Victories: my original plan was just to tell the story of how Hugh decided to name himself Hugh. But I wanted to contextualize it somehow, so I originally thought I'd have him telling it to someone like White. But then I realized that such a scenario wouldn't have taken place before the story, so I'd have to fit it in after or during the story - which I couldn't figure out how to make work. So, I figured, "Hey, why not have him talk about why he hates the name Erik in the first place?" which lead to all the talk of his childhood and sister, and at some point, it just turned into Hugh reflecting about identities.


	8. Turning a Troublemaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place the morning after the performance of _Don George_ and tells an important conversation that Ruby has with Meloetta. I recommend reading it sometime after reading chapter 22 of the main story.

“Hi, welcome to the Pokémon Center, would you like me to restore your Pokémon to full health,” the nurse says wearily. She sounds as exhausted as Ruby feels.

“Mm. You’re welcome,” he says, handing his Poké Balls to her. It registers in his brain that this response is not appropriate for the situation, but he doesn’t think it’s worth the effort to correct himself, since he doesn’t think she heard him, though she’s saying something now, and he’s not sure if it was in response to him or not… “Come again?” Ruby asks, blinking himself back to alertness.

 “I just asked if you were having a long night,” the nurse tells the healing machine as she places Ruby’s Poké Balls in the slots on it.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to going home,” Ruby replies sleepily. “I had to work, and I had a tough battle afterwards. Then I went to find my friend, and she kept getting worked up over things, and I kept having to calm her down. First it was Blake, then it was the managers, then Whitley…” He yawns. “I think I’ll sleep for a century when I get home.”

The nurse nods noncommittally, and the two fall back into silence, waiting for the beep of the machine, which will signify that Ruby’s Pokémon are fully healed. When the beeping finally occurs, it sounds distant, and Ruby barely registers that it happened, but he knows it must have, because the nurse is now handing his Poké Balls back to him.

One of them suddenly shakes violently and falls onto the counter with a loud clack. Now it’s on the ground – it rolled off the counter and landed at Ruby’s feet. Ruby blinks and picks up the Poké Ball. Meloetta is rattling around inside. She glares at him and he grimaces. He should have been expecting her to be feisty at full health.

“Oh – my bad,” the nurse says dully. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“It’s fine,” Ruby says, slipping the Poké Ball into one of the pouches on his belt. “I just caught her…she’s not used to all this yet.”

“Sure,” the nurse sighs. “Good luck, see you soon and all that.” She lets out a huge yawn, and Ruby subconsciously mirrors the action.

As he leaves the Pokémon Center, Ruby contemplates his parting words to the nurse. He had said it like he expects Meloetta to eventually get used to being one of his Pokémon, but does he really? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to think about the answer now. He just wants to head home and crash on his bed, and he can address the Meloetta problem in the morning… 

* * *

Ruby wakes up in the late morning, feeling refreshed and ready to start the day. However, there isn’t much for him to get ready for since the Theater is closed. Still, he feels rather grimy and dirty, and what better place to plan what he wants to do today than the shower?

The warm running water works its magic, and by the time Ruby has cleaned and dressed himself, he has come up with a solution to the Meloetta problem. He doesn’t expect Meloetta to get used to being one of his Pokémon, but he would like it if she would. Since it’s not safe to release her while there’s still the potential for her to go back to working with the Phantom, he might as well try to get her on his side. So, he’s going to try his first attempt at that this morning.

He walks over to the dresser that he unceremoniously flung his belt on top of when he arrived back at his apartment the previous night. It still has all his bags and pouches of makeup supplies clipped on. He detaches all of them from the belt, and he puts them all away except for two: the pouch in which he put Meloetta’s Poké Ball and the bag in which he stores all his other Poké Balls. He brings these into the living room and places them on the coffee table.

First, he takes two Poké Balls out of the bag and sends out the Pokémon inside: Gardevoir and Mightyena. He whispers instructions to them so that Meloetta can’t overhear his plan. Then, he takes the pouch, sets it upright, and opens it.

A combination of multicolored glitter and Meloetta’s Poké Ball instantly shoots out of the pouch and hits Ruby in the face. He yelps and puts a hand to his cheek, where a bruise is most definitely forming. The Poké Ball falls into Ruby’s lap and then rolls under the table, spreading glitter as it goes. Gardevoir’s eyes glow with blue energy, and the Poké Ball rolls back out and stops beside Ruby.

“Thanks, Rara,” Ruby says, wincing. He must have been really tired last night to accidentally put Meloetta’s Poké Ball in a used pouch instead of an empty one.

Except…that pouch normally is empty if he’s taking it home; it’s one of the ones he uses to carry supplies he might need for last-minute touchups backstage, and he puts them back in the costume department after the show is over. With all the commotion after last night’s show, he forgot to empty them out after he went home. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ruby looks into the pouch. The glass jars that he uses to hold decorative glitter are all shattered, their contents mixing together.

Ruby groans. “My glitter is ruined!”

He sighs and puts the bag back down on the table. “It’s alright, we can sort through it later,” he tells Rara, though it’s mostly to reassure himself. This is what the Phantom specializes in – getting people worked up over or discouraged by small things, so that they gravitate towards doing whatever he wants them to do. Naturally, Meloetta will use the same tactics. If Ruby wants to get through to her, he can’t let her manipulate him like that.

Ruby picks up Meloetta’s glittery Poké Ball and smiles at it. “Decorated Poké Balls! That’s a great idea. See, you’re a big help already! Shall we stick with the glitter, or bejewel it instead?”

Meloetta glares at him.

“Look, I have a proposal for you,” Ruby says. “I’m only letting you out of the Poké Ball if you’re going to listen to it. Understood?”

Her expression relaxes and she nods.

Ruby presses the catch on the Poké Ball, and several things happen in quick succession. Meloetta bursts out of the ball and starts to glow with psychic energy. Rara crosses her arms and sends a pulse of energy at Meloetta that shimmers for a moment around her and disappears. The glow around Meloetta fades while Ruby’s Mightyena darts forward and jabs a paw into Meloetta’s throat. Meloetta gags and stumbles backwards. She brings her hands together, and when nothing happens, she looks down at them, then to Rara, and finally to Ruby.

“Are you quite done?”

Meloetta is glaring daggers at Ruby, but she breaks eye contact when she realizes that he’s not intimidated. Instead, she starts looking around the apartment for something.

“You’re not leaving here until you hear me out,” Ruby informs her, but Meloetta shakes her head. If that’s not what she’s looking for, then what…?

Finally, her gaze rests on Ruby’s desk in the corner. She floats over to it, closely tailed by Ruby and his Pokémon. She scans its contents for a moment before rolling a pen off of the desk and clutching it between her hands. She fumbles with the cap for a few moments before finally managing to slide it off, and then moves to hover above a flyer advertising the gala. Ruby, finally catching on, flips the paper over to the blank side. She shoots him a mildly irritated look and begins to pen a shaky message:

_give powers back_

Ruby shakes his head. “I can’t do that unless I’m certain that you’re not going to turn around and attack me. I either have to let you use all of your moves or I don’t let you use any of them. That’s how Imprison works.”

Meloetta grimaces. Ruby considers this a step up from the glaring, so they’re making progress. He’s not sure if he’ll ever get her undivided attention at this rate, so he figures now is as good a time as any to say his bit.

“Meloetta, I…I want to talk to you about performing at the Theater.”

Meloetta jerks her head up to stare into Ruby’s eyes. Her eyes slowly widen as she realizes that he is being entirely serious. Whatever she expected his proposal to be, it was clearly nothing like this.

Ruby presses on. “Your moves are graceful yet powerful, and your voice is incredible. The BW Agency has actors who can sing, but their voices can’t even compare to yours. I haven’t seen you dance before, but I’m sure it’s nothing short of extraordinary. We could draw people to the Theater in hordes with your talents, I’m sure of it.”

Halfway through Ruby’s speech, Meloetta began scribbling a new message on the flyer. Now having finished the message, she tugs on Ruby’s sleeve until he looks down to read it.

_I don’t take ORDERS._

“Orders” is underlined three times.

Ruby can’t help raising an eyebrow and asking, “And what was it that you were doing with the Phantom? A cooperative alliance?”

Meloetta scoffed and shook her head. She pointed at herself, then held up an arm and mimed writing on it, then pointed away from her, past Ruby. Her meaning was clear: “I ordered him.”

“Why? Why were you even helping him in the first place?”

The response is lengthy and difficult for Meloetta to write by hand. Ruby almost caves and returns Rara so that Meloetta can write using Psychic, but he still doesn’t trust her to not immediately return to the Phantom. Finally – after running out of room on the back of the flyer and having to start on a blank piece of notebook paper that Ruby provides her – Meloetta floats back and allows Ruby to see the finished message.

_I want him to be noticed for the musical genius he is. He is stubborn and scared. But he is talented. I tried to get White to notice him. That failed. I let him teach that girl, hoping she could give him some confidence back. But after tonight’s failure, I doubt it will have worked. I will have to start from scratch again._

“Meloetta…” Ruby shakes his head. “After all that he’s done, I doubt the Phantom would be allowed to perform even if he wanted to.”

Meloetta glares at Ruby again, but it is less fierce this time – it’s mixed with fear. She looks back to the paper and adds:

_12 years. We had fun together, sometimes, too. I cannot give that up so easily._

Meloetta has been trying to get the Phantom – Hugh – to get noticed for his musical talent for 12 years? That’s about as long as the Musical Theater has existed. Ruby has no idea how it might feel to pursue a goal for twelve years and then be told that goal is unattainable, that all that work was a waste of time. His heart begins to feel heavy with an emotion that Ruby never expected to feel for Meloetta – sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby says. “I can’t let you go causing trouble with him anymore. But…perhaps I might be able to help you get Hugh to perform.”

Meloetta tilts her head to the side, and she quickly writes down three letters:

_h o w_

“White,” he says simply. “She was his best friend, after all. If anyone’s going to be able to convince him to perform, it’ll be her.”

Meloetta ponders this for a moment, then nods slowly and deliberately.

“I think I can convince her to talk to him about it,” Ruby grins. “All I ask is that you help me out in return.”

Meloetta’s eyes narrow. She carefully slides the notebook paper to the edge of the desk so that she can flip it over and write:

_Help with what?_

Ruby shrugs. “Anything. Costumes, makeup, choreographing, casting, performing…whatever you feel comfortable doing. I just want you to be using your incredible talents for the good of the Theater, rather than against it.”

Meloetta’s whole face seems to perk up at that. She nods rapidly and flies back to the desk, where she scribbles a note as fast as she can:

_♥ choreography_

The young costume designer beams. “Excellent! I’m sure Mr. Tierno will be thrilled to work with you. Of course, you’re welcome to help me with costumes and makeup anytime!”

Ruby starts to head back to the coffee table when Meloetta grabs his sleeve and yanks on it. Once she has his attention, she jabs her hand at the first message she wrote on the back of the flyer.

“Oh, right. Imprison,” Ruby chuckles. He returns Rara, and as soon as he does Meloetta glows with psychic energy and vanishes. The blood drains from Ruby’s face. Had Meloetta just tricked him into removing the Imprison, and now she’s going to go back to the Phantom after all?

Then he hears a melodic giggle behind him, and he yelps and jumps forward. Unfortunately, his desk chair is directly in front of him, so he leaps straight into it. With a pitiful cry, Ruby falls backwards. Meloetta hovers above him, the sound of her laughter like the ringing of a bell.

“That’s not funny!” Ruby protests. Eventually, Meloetta stops laughing long enough to write a quick note for him – written much faster than the other notes, since she could now lift the pen with Psychic and make it dance across the surface of the notepad. The handwriting in the new note was much neater, too:

_Do you really have the authority to hire new crew members?_

“No, but you’re not a new hire. That would imply that you’re getting paid!”

Meloetta punched him.

“Okay, I might have deserved that,” Ruby admits, rubbing his arm. “C’mon, we’ve got a Theater owner to find.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far the most unexpected friendship to come out of this story, mostly because I originally planned for Meloetta to give up as soon as the Don George plan failed. But once I thought about how long she had been working with Hugh, I realized that a) it would be really callous of her to abandon him so quickly and b) she must be really stubborn to not have given up on him already. So I had to totally revise this conversation with this more caring, stubborn version of Meloetta in mind (hence why it took me almost a year to complete), but in the end I'm really happy with how it turned out! 
> 
> Also, unless I decide to write a new short for this collection, there's only one more story left to go in here! Look forward to it!


End file.
